Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Thanks! And, LOTS More!

I am shocked by the amount of support I've felt during the Cyber Monday and bonus Tuesday sale! :) I've been checking my sales non-stop! :) Don't forget - there's still more time to save! The sale is still on!

On a different note, we suddenly switched our reading program - which is really hard to do mid-year. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I'm supposed to be doing/teaching. I have TONS of anxiety about my kiddos not being able to read by 2nd grade because we are so "up in the air". I've taught Direct Instruction Reading for years. This year, we've talked about Four Blocks... and now, I think we're leaning more towards the Daily 5. Ahhh!

I have started doing guided reading groups. We are reading first grade books (and really struggling because most of my kiddos read at a Kindergarten {or below} level). It took me a long time to wrap my head around the fact that my babies that can't sound out "cat" will be reading first grade books. Needless to say, we're starting slow... a lot of echo reading and making sure we're following along.

I haven't started the other aspects of the Daily 5 but I've been pinning and searching blogs for some helpful tips.

We started talking about animals in Science. Today, I split the class into groups, gave them pictures of animals, and had them sort them into categories (mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, insects, and reptiles). They did SO good! I was so proud! There were some questions about some of the animals... so we hopped on the internet and did a little research! The students were SO involved and in charge... I loved it!

I didn't copy the animals in color (they got to see the colored images on the Promethean board) and I didn't make it fancy for them at all..... just some animals, some paper, glue, and scissors! I'll take a picture of their finished product tomorrow!

Here are some of the animals I used.... feel free to grab a copy if you're doing anything animal-related anytime soon! Just click the picture! I used a ton of animals... and most kids might not know exactly what kind of animal these are.... so you might have to do a little research, too!

I plan on making these a little more fancy (when I have more time this weekend) and I'll add on the name of the animal on the card.

Well, good luck to all of the TpT/Teachers Notebook sellers on this last amazing day! If you're interested in purchasing, don't wait! Head over before the sale ends! :)

Don't forget to check back this weekend if you want some fancier animal cards w/ animal names! Thanks for reading!!